Nostalgic Lacquer Take On Me

Tonight I have another polish from the Nostalgic Lacquer New Wave Winter collection: Take On Me! This polish is named after the awesome song by A-Ha. I love this song. One of my favorites! And so it's probably not going to surprise you that I ended up loving this polish.  Nostalgic Lacquer describes this as a "milky white base with navy blue, orange, magenta and teal glitters that create an amazing depth". Can't argue with that.

I decided to wear this on it's own rather than layer it over a base. It was a little sheer in the first coat and took some getting used to when applying it, but I eventually got the hang of it. I used slightly thicker coats here. Dry time was pretty good. Here I used 3-4 coats of Take On Me, depending on the nail and how patchy I thought the white base looked. Overall, three coats gave me fairly opaque coverage, though I noticed I had some thin spots on my larger nails (ring, middle, thumb). It also dried down to a pretty smooth finish, but I used Cult Nails Wicked Fast top coat to finish it off.

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I loved this color combination-- it's unique and very pretty. I loved the speckled look this gave my nails. I received a ton of compliments while I wore this, which always makes me happy. And this polish totally deserves it, because it's lovely.

One thing I did notice about Take On Me was that after a few days (wearing it as a full manicure) the white base seemed to be turning pink. When I look at my bottle, the milky white base is still white but I feel like maybe some of the glitter  bleed on the nail. I'm not sure, but the base was definitely pinker than it was when I applied it. I should have taken pictures. But like I said, the bottle doesn't have any pink in so I'm not sure what the issue was.

Nostalgic Lacquer has a new site and the New Wave Winter collection is available for $9.75 a bottle.

Julep Madison

Here's the last of my add-on polishes from my January Maven box! Tonight I have Julep Madison for you. Madison is described as an "electric neon hot pink creme" and it's definitely bright. This comes off as very red-pink to me.

Madison has a jelly-like formula similar to that of Bethany, and is very easy to apply. Here I have used two coats. Like the other polishes, this dries quickly and dries down to the same satin/matte finish. There is a little visible nail due to the jelly nature of the polish, but it didn't bother me.

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I love this color! (Of course!) I love the brightness and the formula was great.

Julep Nina

Tonight I have another Julep add-on, Nina. Julep describes Nina as an "electric orangesicle neon creme." I don't think this is quite as neon as my pictures would lead you to believe. It's bright and definitely has a creamsicle feel to it, but it's not a true neon. When I went out into natural light, Nina was pretty bright.

The formula on Nina was ok, but a little on the thick side. It was also a little streaky and I needed three coats to even it out. This dries pretty quickly and has the same satin/matte finish that Fiona has.

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Nina is a really pretty orange, but I don't think it's a true neon-- though it is very bright. Unfortunately, Nina is  very similar to another Julep polish, Parker-- except that Nina dries to the satin/matte finish. You can see a comparison over at the Polish Jinx. I'm sad that they're so close, but this is such a cheerful, happy color that I still like it.

Julep Fiona

Tonight I have one of my add-ons for my Julep January Maven box. This is Fiona, which is described as an "electric lime neon green creme." Hmm, well we will talk about this later. But in general, I don't think this polish is lime, nor is it really neon.

I found Fiona to be a little thick and also a little streaky, but not all that difficult to apply. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to write down how many coats I used here-- I'm pretty sure it was three. This dried down to a satin/matte finish.

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I can't be the only person who saw the color and the name and thought of Shrek, right?! I immediately flashed to the OPI Shrek collection, which had a polish called Fiercely Fiona-- but that polish is more yellow as opposed to green. The color is funky, but cool. Very vintage avocado refrigerator! Definitely not lime, like the description says. Additionally, I don't consider this to be a neon. It is bright, and might have some neon pigment in it, but it's not neon. This is a great pretty-ugly color!

Julep Bethany

Tonight I have the other polish from my Maven box, Bethany. Julep describes Bethany as an "electric neon orange pink creme." My first inclination is to call this a red-orange, maybe with a hint of pink. But my color definitely picked up the dominant color, orange. In person I would say that it's not as orange as my pictures would make it out to be, but it's still a bright, bold color.

Bethany had a nice formula, almost sort of jelly-like in consistency and wasn't too thick or too thin. Flowed easily onto the nail and I didn't have any difficulty applying it. Here I have used three coats and you can see just a hint of visible nail line, which is also visible in person-- but it didn't bother me all that much.

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Bethany is a great pop of color in these grey winter months. At first I didn't think that this polish was all that neon, but it's definitely bright and neon when you get it into natural light.

Julep Mindy

Tonight I have the first polish from my January Maven box-- Mindy. The theme of the box was "nudes and neons" and Mindy is the nude polish. Julep describes Mindy as a "porcelain pink sheer." It is sheer, though it seems you can make it opaque if you use enough coats.

Here I have used three coats of Mindy. This was actually the second time I swatched this, because I wanted to get it right! Since this is marketed as a sheer, I wanted to use thinner coats to keep it more on the sheer side. You can still see a hint of visible nail line, but Mindy looks pretty opaque with three coats. My main issue with this polish is not that it's a sheer, is that it's so darn streaky! If it wasn't streaky, I would love this. But it doesn't go on evenly and you can see on my nails where it's a bit patchy. It could be worse, definitely, but it's not perfect.

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It's a lovely pink! And I do like it-- I guess I need to play around with applying it so see if I can get it right.